As a result, this easily avoidable problem has reached near-epidemic proportions. Making matters more frustrating is knowing that so many losses could have been easily avoided with a few mundane but crucial steps. "I would put patching in the top two . . .
As a result, this easily avoidable problem has reached near-epidemic proportions. Making matters more frustrating is knowing that so many losses could have been easily avoided with a few mundane but crucial steps. "I would put patching in the top two things an admin can do to secure their computers," said Lance Spitzner, coordinator for the security group Honeynet Project. The others are turning off unnecessary services, like serving up Web pages, allowing file transfers, or responding to remote logins.

Every day, the underground elements of the Internet use scanners to find servers susceptible to what security experts have taken to calling the "exploit du jour." Depending on the type of flaw and connection speed, anywhere from tens of thousands to millions of Internet addresses can be scanned in a single day. If even less than 1 percent of the scanned servers connected to each address are vulnerable, that can still result in thousands of defenseless possibilities for a hacker.